Rate My Professor Giovanni Lugaresi

Giovanni Lugaresi is an Assistant Professor on the tenure track in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KU Leuven's Faculty of Engineering Technology. He earned a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2016 and completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the same institution from November 2017 to October 2021. After his doctorate, Lugaresi served as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and Temporary Post-Doctoral Researcher at Politecnico di Milano from November 2021 to September 2022, followed by a PostDoc position at CentraleSupélec's Laboratory of Industrial Engineering in France from September 2022 to August 2023. He joined KU Leuven in his current role thereafter, affiliated with the Mobility and Industrial Management division on the Group T Leuven Campus. Lugaresi is a member of the KU Leuven Institute for Mobility (LIM), Leuven.AI - KU Leuven Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Flanders Make, where he contributes as a Principal Investigator. He also participates in governance as a member of the Faculty Council of Industrial Engineering Sciences and the Department Council of Mechanical Engineering.

Lugaresi's research centers on production planning and control, smart manufacturing systems, digital twins, robust optimization, and sustainable value chains, with emphasis on automatic generation and operation of digital twins for Industry 4.0 applications and educational innovations. His work addresses simulation-optimization in manufacturing, stochastic programming, and process mining. Notable publications include 'Automated manufacturing system discovery and digital twin generation' (Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 2021), 'Real-time simulation in manufacturing systems: Challenges and research directions' (2018), 'Online validation of digital twins for manufacturing systems' (2023), 'Towards a requirement-driven digital twin architecture' (2022), and recent contributions such as 'From Digital Twins to Twinning Systems' (Winter Simulation Conference, 2025) and 'Integration of Learning Curves in Digital Twins for Dynamic Assembly Line Re-Balancing' (ECMS International Conference on Modelling and Simulation, 2025). As project promoter, he leads initiatives like 'Human-centric digital twins for dynamic assembly line rebalancing problem: a framework from data to decision support' (2025-2029), 'Advanced Modelling and Validation Methods for Digital Twins of Circular Production Systems' (2025-2029), and 'Next Generation Digital Twins for Smart Manufacturing Systems' (2023-2025). Lugaresi teaches courses including Advanced Operations Management and Operations Management at KU Leuven.